Three hexes northwest, three north of Alakran.  In this dry and dull valley, unappealing even to the perfidious clods of Nekai, we shall ret...

For myself and many others, writing-for-a-living places great importance on getting it right . Doing any kind of research, engineering, tech...

Here's a simple idea inspired by noisms' observation that having a basic idea about your setting is key to improvisation. I would a...

How many movies owe their existence to fevered high-concept pitches like: "It's like Dracula, but with a soul brother!" ...

"A room with a ceiling full of webs..?" The cliche - spiders hiding in the webs, you can burn the webs, stuff is wrapped up in...

What can I say about the poor illusion? AD&D wrongfooted it with Phantasmal Force, spawning a thousand cries of "I disbelieve!...

Yep, I bought one at GenCon. I've got paints and a fine-point brush. What goes on it?

As much as I've enjoyed improvising content in game sessions, I've come to see some drawbacks to the practice. In short, while imp...

Moving beyond written setting elements to create surprise and wonder for your players, we have already seen the ease and limitations of the ...

Trawling through the comments and ideas going around about fantasticism, I can identify three approaches, that each might work for differen...

Close behind the temptation to laugh at bad monsters ( ha , ha and ha ) is the temptation to improve them. It's the same urge that led N...

The most spectacular failed monsters are those that bring together elements never yet joined before - the head of a rabbit! the body of a l...

Allow me to resurrect this article on creativity that came to my attention via Trollsmyth several months ago. I'm passingly familiar ...

The magic system is probably the thing that's the least to my liking in older editions of D&D. After, all what attracts me to the ol...